Customer Reviews

Mother Goose's Melodies

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This is a terrific reprint of the original Mother Goose from 1833. It is a fabulously interesting time capsule of how children were taught both at school and at home in the early 19th Century. All at once, these rhymes teach reading, reading comprehension, inflection, principles of public speaking, and, of course, cautionary tales. And wonderful illustrations fill the tiny volume.

A word of caution to those who might not know: if you are looking for songs, keep looking. When the title declares "Mother Goose's Melodies," Munroe and Francis are using the early 19th Century usage of the word "melody": "An agreeable succession of sounds; a succession of sounds so regulated and modulated as to please the ear. To constitute melody, the sounds must be arranged according to the laws of rhythms, measure, or the due proportion of the movements to each other." Just try to say the following out loud in a monotone voice:

This is the horse and the hound and the horn,
That belonged to the farmer sowing his corn,
That kept the cock that crowed in the morn,
That waked the priest all shaven and shorn,
That married the man all tattered and torn,
That tossed the maiden all forlorn,
That milked the cow with the crumpled horn,
That tossed the dog,
That worried the cat.
That killed the rat,
That ate the malt
That lay in the house that Jack built.

Enjoy!

I expected a book with this title would have the music to go with the poems.

Nope.